


Think About the Sun

by The_Carnivorous_Muffin



Series: Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus [52]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Pippin - Schwartz/Hirson
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Depression, Existentialism, F/M, Female Harry Potter, Friendship/Love, Master of Death Harry Potter, Murder, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-23
Updated: 2018-08-23
Packaged: 2019-07-01 15:52:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15777240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin
Summary: All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts. Lily, as the Lead Player and conductor of this strange stage we call life, presents the play of Tom Riddle's life, with a glorious unseen finale.





	1. Act I

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously NOT CANON.

There was a darkened stage that was all the world, and a single bright spotlight, the dust particles floating inside of it like microscopic angels, and a red headed girl in the center with a pair of hauntingly inhuman green eyes staring out from a pale face made paler by the lighting.

 

She stood, head bowed beneath a showman’s top hat, feet crossed slightly as she leaned forward on a cane, listening to the sound of a single note growing louder and louder from the distance, and a piano rhythmically making its entrance, a cymbal tapping in time to the pulse of the music, and a woman’s voice humming in the background.

 

The Lead Player lifted her head, subjugating the audience and the stage to her vision, as she commanded, “Join us, leave your fields to flower.”

 

A gloved hand outward towards the audience, a grin forming on her lips, as she further asked, “Join us, leave your cheese to sour.”

 

The Lead Player then began to meander along the stage, the spotlight following her all the while as she continued to stare out at the audience and beckon them into the tale, “Join us, come and waste an hour or two. Doo-dle-ee-doo.”

 

She then moved her hands dramatically gesturing towards the darkened stage surrounding her even while her eyes seemed lit from within, “Journey, journey to a spot exciting, mystic and exotic.”

 

She stopped made a broader more sweeping gesture that encompassed them all as she implored, “Journey through our anecdotic revue.”

 

“We’ve got magic to do, just for you,” a spark of light appeared in her hands, bright and golden, tangible even beneath the spotlight still hanging oppressively above her, “We’ve got miracle plays to play.”

 

She grinned at the audience, blowing into her hands and making the light, like butterflies, fly out towards them to dazzle and delight, “We’ve got parts to perform, hearts to warm.”

 

A steel blade appeared in her hands, all red and golden with honor and blood, the sword of Gryffindor held triumphantly aloft, “Kings and things to take by storm, as we go along our way.”

 

The Lead Player bowed slightly motioning to her left where a tall blond man with ambition on his mind and tragedy in his future, dressed in gold in clothing better suited for the nineteenth century than the twentieth, the Hungarian wizard Gellert Grindelwald in his prime, appeared and stared into the faceless audience with eyes that burned, “Intrigue, plots to bring disaster.”

 

The Lead Player motioned to her right, Grindelwald disappearing and in his place a middle-aged man in a professor’s robes, wearing casual ambition on his sleeves for all to see, the younger Horace Slughorn, “Humor, handled by a master.”

 

An older, illusory version of the Lead Player herself, stepping out where the shadow of Horace Slughorn had once been as she declared sultrily, “Romance, sex presented pastorally.”

 

The Lead Player stepped to her left banishing the woman with little more than a twirl of her cane, “Dee-dle-ee-dee.”

 

A dark haired blue eyed young man just on the cusp of adulthood, a replication formed through patricide and the splitting of his own soul like an atom, the horcrux of Tom Riddle looked out at the audience with pale blue eyes and declared, “Illusion, fantasy to study.”

 

A middle-aged man with a red beard grown dull by tried and betrayed friendships and mistakes long since made, bitterly cried out, “Battles, barbarous and bloody.”

 

The Lead Player cut in, in front of all of the shadows her cast created, and urged the audience with delight, “Join us, sit where everybody can see.”

 

And then the shadows were tangible once again, imploring with the Lead Player as they motioned towards the stage and the tale that waited there, “We’ve got magic to do, just for you. We’ve got miracle plays to play. We’ve got parts to perform, hearts to warm. Kings and things to take by storm. As we go along our way, magic to do, magic to play. We got foibles and fables to portray, as we go along our way.”

 

The music reached a crescendo, grew almost deafening, and then it was done, the Lead Player standing at the front of the pyramid comprised of the cast, tipping her hat towards the audience who remained unseen and unheard.

 

Finally, the Lead Player grinned, a shark like almost inhuman thing despite the human lips and human teeth that conveyed it, “Ladies and gentlemen, this evening, for your entertainment and pleasure, we present a most mysterious and miraculous tale.”

 

“A stunning example of magic and merriment. You will witness acts of lust and love, and a climax you will remember for the rest of your lives!” the Lead Player then leaned towards her audience as if to give them a bit of an aside, “A different format than usual, I know, and were we not confined to these quarters you would hear the music and see the lights but the show must go on and the show has decided to stick to the written page for now.”

 

“The story we tell today is not one of kings or princes, of Charlemagne and his first-born son, but instead of an orphan. A boy born to covet and destined to gain all that he wanted at both too steep and too slim of a price,” the Lead Player turned dramatically, motioned towards the stage where, out of nothing it seemed, a bright-eyed Tom Marvolo Riddle ran to the center.

 

“Tom Marvolo Riddle, the life and times,” the Lead Player announced with a bow towards the protagonist as well as the audience. The Lead Player straightened then, eyeing the audience and speaking frankly of the characters, “Now, there have been many misconceptions about Tom here, I’m sure you’re familiar with all of them and then some.”

 

At this Tom gave her a rather disparaging and disbelieving look but the Lead Player wrote this off easily enough, “Hang onto them, if you must, but, if you are flexible of mind, please leave them at the door for now. Because you see, our story begins with Tom, on the eve of his revolution of self…”

 

The Lead Player moved to the side, sitting at the side of the stage and watching as Tom Riddle beamed out at the audience. A man stepped up beside him, Horace Slguhorn, bushy browed and beaming proudly as he set the scene, “He was in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, in his fifth year, head of all his classes, setting records on his OWL examinations, surpassing all expectations of him and then some. And his Potions professor, Professor Horace Slughorn, at a holiday party with perhaps a tad too much champagne, had just given his student…”

 

And here the man grimaced, an uncertain look upon his face as he glanced towards Tom who sent a rather charming smile back to him, the picture of innocent ambition and golden perfection, “His greatest and most beloved student, the dark secrets to immortality.”

 

Albus Dumbledore, in magenta robes that clashed with the sobriety of his expression stepped forward, placing a heavy hand on Tom Riddle’s shoulder, ignoring the way Tom flinched beneath it, “However, not all professors were so enamored by the young Tom Riddle. Albus Dumbledore could never shake the memory of what he had once been, a violent and strange child in a muggle orphanage, who exalted in the power he held over the defenseless. And often, often he found himself wondering, exactly what it was that the young orphan Tom Riddle was thinking…”

 

The Lead Player hopped from her perch and wandered to the center stage again, “Unfortunately, Tom Marvolo Riddle was a young man of very few words and very few that had any spark of truth to them.”

 

She circled the boy, poking him in his heart with her cane as she motioned to him and out towards his peers, those he so casually and easily disregarded, “He would smile and parrot back what was expected of him, what was necessary in this strange and elaborate game we called life, but his heart of hearts, oh, well that had a different song to sing…”

 

The Lead Player waited, motioning towards him, then waited again. Then she turned to the audience and said, “He may be a little bit nervous, it is his first time playing the role.”

 

Tom then gave the Lead Player a rather scathing look before glancing up at the ceiling and the spotlights hanging above him, “Can I have some more light, please?”

 

“Well, he’s not that nervous,” the Lead Player said to the audience with a slight grin before, with a snap of her fingers, summoning the light onto the protagonist.

 

Tom for a moment considered the Lead Player, took in her red hair, her thin limbs, her strange human yet not quite appearance and the showman costume she wore, and then stepped past her and towards his audience without a word. The Lead Player, with a slight mocking grin, took a step backwards and into the shadows once again.

 

“I am very grateful for Hogwarts, for the knowledge it has given me, for the home it has provided these past five years,” he glanced backwards towards Albus Dumbledore and Horace Slughorn who waited, frozen in time, in the wings, “I am very grateful to my head of house, Professor Slughorn, and I am even grateful to Professor Dumbledore, for all they have shared with me during my time here.”

 

He looked out towards the audience, stepping forward again, “Sometimes, sometimes I think I’d like to stay in these castle walls forever, that perhaps I too will one day become a professor and teach the next generation all that I have learned here… But what I’m looking for, what I’m truly looking for, can’t be found even inside Hogwarts.”

 

Circling the boy, the Lead Player then prompted, “And Tom made a promise.”

 

“I promise not to waste my life!” Tom cried out towards the audience, but as if he was crying out towards himself, towards the center of his own being, “I won’t die in vain, in fact, I mean not to die at all. I promise not to waste my life on commonplace and ordinary pursuits. I will live a life that is… extraordinary.”

 

He struggled then, barking out a laugh and weaving a hand through his dark hair, “I know there is… something.”

 

The piano began to sound in the background once again, in a major hopeful key to match Tom Riddle’s aspirations.

 

“Something completely fulfilling,” the Lead Player answered for him, meeting his delighted smile as he turned towards her and exclaimed, “Yes, yes, that’s it! Something… something completely fulfilling!”

 

He turned back towards the audience with determination, fire in his soul to back this internal vow of his, “And I’ll find it, I’ll…”

 

At once he looked towards the audience, breathing in, and matching the pitch of the key he proclaimed, “Everything has its season, everything has its time.”

 

Gesturing towards the audience he prompted, “Show me a reason and I’ll soon show you a rhyme.”

 

A smile, a dash towards them, he expanded upon this, “Cats fit on the window sill, children fit in the snow…”

 

Then with a distant look, a flicker of doubt appearing on his sculpted features he asked, “So why do I feel I don’t fit in anywhere I go?”

 

Rubbing a hand through his thick dark hair once again, moving it into boyish disarray, he declared, “Rivers belong where they can ramble, eagles belong where they can fly. I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free, got to find my corner of the sky.”

 

He threw his hands into the air, thinking for a minute, before rounding once again on his audience with that spark in his eye and expanding, “Every man has his daydreams, every man has his goal. People like the way dreams have of sticking to the soul. Thunderclouds have their lightning, nightingales have their song, and don’t you see I want my life to be something more than long.”

 

Once again, with more assurance, he stated, “Rivers belong where they can ramble, eagles belong where they can fly. I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free, got to find my corner of the sky.”

 

Then, in disregard, looking back towards his invisible peers Tom sang, “So many men seem destined to settle for something small, but I won’t rest until I know I have it all. So, don’t ask where I’m going, just listen when I’m gone, and far away you’ll hear me singing softly to the dawn.”

 

Quietly and almost sweetly, his words bundled in his dreams, Tom Riddle declared for one final time, “Rivers belong where they can ramble, eagles belong where they can fly. I’ve got to be where my spirit can run free, got to find my corner of the sky.”

 

He waited then, in rapture of his own ambitions, until the piano and music faded from him, and only the sound of the Lead Player, slowly clapping from behind him, could be heard, “Well done, well done, comrade.”

 

The Lead Player walked towards him, hooked her pale arm into his and looked him directly in the eye, smiling at the look of contempt and confusion that he bestowed down upon her, “I do believe, ladies and gentlemen, that we have a live one tonight.”

 

Then, with a smile back towards her audience, the Lead Player began walking the boy towards the next scene, a flurry of movement and extras behind them, “Journey, journey to spot exciting, mystic, and exotic. Journey through our anecdotic revue!”

 

She then disentangled herself from Tom, held up her arms, and announced, “Hogwarts, Scotland, 1943.”

 

Then, motioning towards center stage, “And in France, across the sea pillaging and raping his way through the countryside muggle and magical, enter, Gellert Grindelwald.”

 

Gellert Grindelwald appeared, looking at first down at his feet before glaring across at the audience, “This part is to be portrayed by an actor of enormous power!”

 

The Lead Player tipped her hat to him before turning quickly back to the audience, “We join him in the midst of his campaign in Europe, the world his oyster, except, of course, for Great Britain.”

 

To Gellert the Lead Player proclaimed, “All these worlds are yours, except Europa, attempt no landing there.”

 

She then turned once more to the audience, leaning towards them as she gave an aside once again, “Of course, space odysseys are a little beyond our Hungarian friend’s time, and more, like all great leaders, he’s also a great fool, and such worthy advice would be lost upon him until it was much too late.”

 

“But what does Gellert Grindelwald have to do with me?” Tom Riddle suddenly asked only for the Lead Player to stare and look at him as if he’d grown too heads.

 

“Everything,” she said simply.

 

She then stalked forward, next to him, arm in his once again, “Gellert Grindelwald, has everything to do with you, comrade.”

 

Tom did not seem convinced as he asked, rather flatly, “How?”

 

“He is you, in some sense, or rather, he is what you aspire to be, isn’t he?” the Lead Player then paused and remarked, looking at him, staring him up and down, “You’ve never been in a war, have you?”

 

“What I aspire to be?” Tom balked but with the look of a man who doth protest a bit too much, the Lead Player hardly convinced by the innocence of his expressions, “Just what is it you think I…”

 

“We have no secrets here, Tom,” the Lead Player proclaimed, “A revolution, an empire, yourself a dark lord presiding above it all, Voldemort…”

 

The Lead Player offered the shaken Tom, then the audience, an amused grin before turning her attention swiftly back to Tom, “We all know your dirty secrets, comrade, it’s practically old hat at this point.”

 

She patted his shoulder then consolingly, “But there’s no need to be ashamed, war is a glorious pastime, a truly extraordinary one, some might say. It is in war and tragedy that a name such as yours, your chosen anagram, can be remembered by even the most pitiful of creatures.”

 

He stared at her for a moment, irritated, brushed off her hand, and admitted, “Fine, fine, you’ve got it, congratulations!”  


The Lead Player smirked watching as he walked away from her in a huff, only to stop, as if struck by a bolt of lightning. Slowly, he turned towards her, then he asked, “What do you mean, I’ve never been in a war.”  


“Nothing,” the Lead Player remarked with a shrug, staring down at her fingernails in dismissal as she casually remarked, “Just that them’s fighting words, comrade, especially for someone who has never been in the heat of battle.”

 

“I am not afraid of blood,” the boy said, almost smirking as he stared at her, “If that’s what you’re getting at.”

 

“Is that so?” the Lead Player asked, “Are you ready now?”

 

“Now?” he asked, looking around in bafflement, “But I’m only sixteen, I’m still in school and…”

 

“Age has never stopped you before, comrade. More, pretend…” the Lead Player trailed off, waving her hands in front of her, unconsciously summoning a rainbow inside of them, unaware of how Tom stared at her pale fingers in envy, “Pretend that the world is a stage, your life a play with yourself as… Well, I’m the Lead Player but you’re certainly the hero of our tale.”

 

The light disappeared with a snap of her fingers, reality restored itself, and she offered Tom a rather knowing smile, “We live in a place of miraculous illusions, comrade, there are no limits here,”

 

With that, she threw Tom Marvolo Riddle the sword of Gryffindor, which had appeared in her hand out of nothingness itself. He caught it with less elegance than he clearly would have liked, but he stared down at it wonder even as she continued, “Besides, I’m curious, I want to see what this revolution of yours looks like.”

 

He stared up at the blade, entranced by his own reflection in the cold goblin steel as he took in her words and all his hidden possibilities, “Yes, yes I’ve been waiting in Hogwarts too long, I’ve been waiting in Hogwarts and in the orphanage when this… This is what I should have been doing years ago…” he did not even notice as the set around him changed as he twisted the blade this way and that in the spotlight, a wild grin appearing on his features, “Finally, a chance to do something important.”

 

And Grindelwald, standing center stage just behind Tom Riddle, just like that, came to life once again.

 

“Gentlemen,” he commanded the German wizard troops that had assembled when Tom was not looking, glaring at Tom until he managed to scramble and fit himself into a seat, an almost awed look on boy’s face as he stared up at this current dark lord, the man he aspired to be, “Be seated!”

 

Grindelwald then, with pride and confidence in his own intellect and ambitions, his subordinates staring up in him in rapture, spread out a map as a strange melody began to fill the air, almost a mockery of a marching tune, the flurry ending with the crash of a cymbal.

 

Then, with a lilting flute to accompany his words, Grindelwald sang out, “War is a science, with rules to be applied. Which good soldiers appreciate, recall and recapitulate, before they go to decimate the other side.”

 

He then spoke to his men, pointing to the map spread out before him and the audience, “Now, gentlemen, this is the plan for tomorrow’s skirmish.”

 

The melody picked up once again as Grindelwald continued, pointing to various colored areas on the map as he did so, “The army of the enemy is stationed on the hill, so we’ve got to bring them down here, so they’re easier to kill. The men in the ravine (that’s this area in green) will move across the valley where they plainly can be seen, and the enemy (in blue) will undoubtedly pursue, for that’s what you depend upon an enemy to do.”

 

The men laughed at this as Grindelwald smirked at them before pointing to the map again, Tom Riddle’s smile alone losing its edge as he watched Grindelwald continue, “Then to guarantee their folly we’ll bring bowmen into play, who will fire just one volley and retire to point ‘A’. And then, and then, and gentlemen, and then…”

 

Tom stood then, interjecting dramatically as he looked towards his comrades in arms, envisioning the battle to come, the battle he had been planning for his entire life, “And then the men go marching off into the fray, conquering the enemy and carrying the day! Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears. Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation’s cheers!”

 

Grindelwald broke the song, harshly interjecting, “Riddle, sit down immediately!”

 

Embarrassed, Tom sat back down as if realizing he was both out of time and place, staring at the floor as his face grew red.

 

“Now, where was I, ah, yes,” Grindelwald stopped, cleared his throat, and started again, the flute returning with him, “War is a science, a breeding ground for brains. The men whose pens have brought them fame, write endless paragraphs explaining my campaigns.”

 

He then moved back to the map pointing with vigor, “Now, when the foe see our soldiers marching through the lea, they will mount a charge and meet us at the point I’ve labeled ‘B’, and their bowmen on the hill (in yellow on the map), will leave their posts to join the rest and fall into our trap. Then we’ll cut off reinforcements and retreat of any kind, bearing principles of enfilade and defilade in mind. And if all the ploys we pick to really work to bring to pass occur, we won’t have just a victory, we’ll have ourselves a massacre.”

 

Grindelwald finished, turned from the map with glee, and announced, “And then, and then, and gentlemen, and then…”

Tom stood one again, more insistently this time, ignoring the raised eyebrows of the Lead Player, “And then the men go marching out into the fray, conquering the enemy and carrying the day. Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears. Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation’s…”

 

Grindelwald cut him off, “Riddle!”

 

Grindelwald sighed, the music gaining its march like quality again, “In conclusion, gentlemen… Now listen to me closely, I’ll endeavor to explain what separates a charlatan from a Charlemagne. A rule confessed by generals, illustrious and various, though pompous as a Pompey or daring as a Darius. A simple rule that every good man knows by heart, it’s smarter to be lucky than it’s lucky to be smart.”

 

With a rather self-deprecating smile he then said, “And if the fates feel frivolous, and all our plans they smother… Well, suppose this war does shrivel us, there’ll always be another! And then…”

 

The men chimed in with him, leaning eagerly forward as they prompted, “And then…”

 

Grindelwald prompted in turn, “And gentlemen, and then…” he paused for dramatic effect, grinning, and then spoke quietly, “Now, gentlemen, now!”

 

The men stood, marching in place, Tom standing with them out of time but grinning as their blood thirsty eagerness infected him as well, “And then the men go marching out into the fray, conquering the enemy and carrying the day. Hark! The blood is pounding in our ears. Jubilations! We can hear a grateful nation’s cheers!”

 

The song ended, Grindelwald and his men standing in place for a single moment, then each marching off stage, wands in hands, Tom following them with the sword of Gryffindor in his. The Lead Player stepped behind him, calling out to him a warning in song, “Battle, barbarous and bloody.”

 

Tom stalled, but only for a moment, and then walked off the stage after the others with his head held high. However, as a sleazy jazz number began, the Lead Player remained, dancing in time and tipping her hat forward and down as she danced and then, eyeing the audience with a smile that dreamed of war, smiled. Then, dramatically, she declared, “Glory, glory!”

 

She stepped forward, arms out stretched, cane in hand, “Glory, glory!”

 

She then knelt, lifting her cane as if it were the sword she had given away as little more than a prop, bowing her head, “Praise be to Charles our Lord, triumphant is his sword, allegiance is his word…”

 

She stood, raising her cane forwards towards the spotlight and the heavens, looking towards the audience as she did so, “Glory, glory! Glory, glory!”

 

All reverence was lost as she leaned forward smirking at her audience, “Blood,” then softer, more sensual, she expanded, “Blood is red as sunset, blood is warmer than wine, the taste of salty summer brine.”

 

The men marched onto the stage, wands brandished outwards, glowing at their tips. The Lead Player exclaimed, “Steel!”

 

Then again expanding in a softer more seductive tone, the Lead Player went on, “Steel is cold as moonlight, steel is sharper than sight, the touch of bitter winter white.”

 

With a great cry the battle began to take place, enemy wizards appearing few and far between as Grindelwald’s troops ran them through, stealing their souls with green and disposing of their bodies in red, and as they dragged off corpses and moved forward they sang, “Shout it out from the highest tower, shout it out in the darkest hour, Charlemagne, you lead us on to power!”

 

The Lead Player dancing took center stage once again, facing the audience, “War!”

 

She leaned forward, rolling her body in time with the music, “War, is strict as Jesus. War, it’s finer than spring. Service to Christ and to our King!”

 

Soldiers approached once again, shadowing the Lead Player as they demanded, “Shout it out from the highest tower, shout it out in the darkest hour, Charlemagne, you lead us on to power…”

 

They trailed off, the music falling back and a military drum march taking its place, the Lead Player marched with the troop, a comical mockery of their movements while Grindelwald and Tom appeared on stage, Tom trailing the older man who barely paid him any mind at all. The pair walked off stage and then the Lead Player, flanked by two German wizards, approached the audience as the music for a tap routine began.

 

She lifted her hat and cane, smiling broadly, and bowed before her audience along with the German Wizards. Then, slowly, she began to step rhythmically in time, the German wizards mirroring her every movement.

 

Behind her, Tom wandered onto the stage by himself, almost in a daze as he stared at the empty surroundings.

 

The Lead Player’s dance ended, and with a bow, she lifted her head as the music began to move in double-time, a swift ragtime, and as it did so the war commenced once again with unprecedented carnage while Tom watched almost in hesitation as limbs and head went flying, he ducked and flew to the ground as spells were cast over him, and only when there were none standing and the Lead Player emerged did he pick himself up, brushing off his blood stained robes.

 

Then, glancing down at a severed head next to Tom, the Lead Player offered him a strange almost mocking smile, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!”  


Then, flanked by what few soldiers remained, Tom watching, she and the soldiers sang out, “The gates of heaven await, thrown open wide by Charles the Great, we follow him through by serving his state.”

 

Then, arms flung out, they all declared one final, “Glory, glory!”

 

The song finished, Tom Riddle watched as Grindelwald and the soldiers marched off, to pillage and rape his way through France, the Lead Player watching him all the while with a spark in her green eyes.

 

“Eagles belong where they can fly,” Tom muttered to himself, closing his eyes and turning away from the blood, “I’ve got to be, where my spirit can run free…”

 

He trailed off, the music picking up and a light in his eyes, then he darted off stage back elsewhere and else when. The Lead Player, however, remained, and a spotlight fell upon her as she began to sing in time with the strumming of a guitar, “Well, I’ll sing you the story of a sorrowful lad. Had everything he wanted, didn’t want what he had.”

 

The Lead Player walked along the stage, dismissing the absent Tom with a wave of her pale hand, “He had wealth and pelf and name and fame and all of that noise, but he didn’t have none of those simple joys.”

 

With renewed energy she cried out, “His life seemed purposeless and flat, aren’t you glad you don’t feel like that?”

 

Then, resuming her tale, the Lead Player continued, “So he ran from all the deeds he’d done, he ran from things he’d just begun, he ran from himself, which was mighty far to run. Out into the country where he played as a boy, he knew he had to find him some simple joys.”

 

She threw her arms outward, almost as if she were Tom herself crying out in desperation, “He wanted some place warm and green, we all could use a change of scene.”

 

The stage transformed around her, turned green beneath spotlight as the ensemble darted out, watching her avidly as she continued, “Sweet summer evenings, hot wine and bread, sharing your supper, sharing your bed. Simple joys have a simple voice: that says why not go ahead? And wouldn’t you rather be a left-handed flea, or a crab on a slab at the bottom of the sea, than a man who never learns how to be free, not ‘til he’s cold and dead.”

 

She danced forward in time to the instrumental break in the music, a curiously graceful thing for her age and height, before repeating again, “And wouldn’t you rather be a left-handed flea, a crab on a slab at the bottom of the sea, or a new on the root of the banyan tree, than a man who never learns how to be free, not ‘til the day he dies.”

 

“Sweet summer evenings, sapphire skies, feasting your belly, feasting your eyes. Simple joys have a simple voice: that says time is living’s prize. And wouldn’t you rather be a left-handed flea, a crab on a slab at the bottom of the sea, a newt on the root of a banyan tree, or a fig on a twig in Galilee, than a man who never learns how to be free, not ‘til the day he dies!”

 

The song ceased, the Lead Player, breathing heavily, grinned at the audience and bowed once, then slowly, ever so slowly, turned her attention to Tom Riddle who had wandered back on stage with a rather lost expression on his face, “Tom Riddle returned from France as if he had never been there to begin with, disillusioned with blood and battle and the glory of war, but uncertain of what it was he wished for in turn and having no one to turn to…”

 

And that seemed to be enough to remind Tom Riddle of who exactly he was and what exactly he was doing.  


“I do not need anyone to turn to,” Tom proclaimed, throwing the sword to the side and not even glancing at the blood-stained blade, “I’ll make the horcrux, that’s what I always planned to do and…”

 

“To what end, comrade?” the Lead Player asked, tilting her head as she observed him, “You make all these plans, you have all these ambitions, but have you ever really lived a day of your life?”  


“I haven’t died…”  


“Yes, but you haven’t really lived,” the Lead Player interrupted, observing him with a tilt of her head, “Academics, you did that, found it unfulfilling, the glory of war, of the blood of battle, not quite as heart pounding as you’d hoped, was it? And all the while you’ve missed… the simple things.”

 

“The simple things?” he asked, truly balked, at her.

 

“Simple joys, the taste of wine, the tender embrace of a woman, those small fleeting pleasures in life that pass so very quickly. Well, for those of us who don’t covet immortality,” the Lead Player explained before slowly, with emphasis, restating, “The simple things.”

 

He gave out a harsh laugh, dismissed her, and asked, “And why on earth should I listen to someone as unenlightened as you?”

 

The Lead Player was almost amused by this, scoffing slightly as she looked towards the audience, letting them in on the joke, “Unenlightened, well, that one’s new…”

 

Seething at the joke he wasn’t getting at his own expense he asked, “And what exactly would you recommend?”

 

“I thought you’d never ask,” the Lead Player noted, and with these words the piano swelled, “When you are as old as I, my dear, and I hope that you never are. You will woefully wonder why, my dear, through your cataracts and catarrh, you could squander away or sequester a drop of a precious year. For when your best days are yester, the rest are twice as dear…”

 

The music picked up, the Lead Player stood moving in time and pulling Tom along with her as she advised him through song and dance, “What good is a field on a fine summer night, if you sit all alone with the weeds? Or a succulent pear, if with each juicy bite, you spit out your teeth with the seeds?”

 

At the idea of his old age, of his approaching death, Tom Riddle grimaced but the Lead Player didn’t even seem to notice this, instead spread her hands outwards as she advised, “Before it’s too late, stop trying to wait for fortune and fame you’re secure of. For there’s one thing to be sure of, mate: there’s nothing to be sure of!”

 

Darting to the center of the stage, the lights on them both, she grinned as she declared within the chorus, “Oh, it’s time to start livin’, time to take a little from the world we’re given, time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall, in just no time at all…”

 

She stopped, faced him directly once again, causing Tom to step back and blink in bafflement, as she mused, “I’ve never wondered if I was afraid when there was a challenge to take. I never thought about how much I weighed when there was still one piece of cake.”

 

With a shrug and a smile, she added, “Maybe it’s meant the hours I’ve spent feeling broken, and bent, and unwell. But there’s still no cure sole heaven-sent as the chance to raise some hell.”

 

Then, motioning to the Hogwarts ensemble, students and professors who had appeared behind the pair, she commanded, “Everybody!”

 

And they each joined her in the chorus once again, leaving Tom standing dazed in the midst of the number, unaware of the choreography or the words, “Oh, it’s time to start livin’, time to take a little from this world we’re given, time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall in just no time at all…”

 

The Lead Player started in again, the Hogwarts populace humming behind her as she noted with confidence, “Now when the drearies do attack, and a siege of the sands begins, I just throw these regal shoulders back and lift these noble chins.”

 

Then, looking directly towards Tom, she said half mocking half serious, “Give me a man who is handsome and strong, someone who’s stalwart and steady. Give me a night that’s romantic and long, and give me a month to get ready.”

 

She grinned, dismissed this and his rather alarmed look, “Now I could waylay, some aging roue, and persuade him to play in some cranny. But it’s hard to believe I’m being led astray by a man who calls me granny.”

 

Turning from the rather discontent Tom Riddle she turned back towards the audience, the ensemble joining her, “Oh, it’s time to start livin’, time to take a little from this world we’re given, time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall in just no time at all…”

 

The Lead Player turned back, smiling at Tom, and then taking his hand in hers, “Now Sages tweet that age is sweet, good deeds and good work earns you laurels. But what could make you feel more obsolete than being noted for your morals?”  


Leaning towards his ear she whispered, “Here is a secret I never have told, maybe you’ll understand why, I believe if I refuse to grow old I can stay young ‘til I die.”

 

Stepping back but still gripping his hands in hers, she stared him straight in the eye, her own eyes sparkling with an age that wasn’t present in her youthful features, “Now, I’ve known the fears of sixty-six years, I’ve had troubles and tears by the score. But the only thing I’d trade them for is sixty-seven more.”

 

Stepping back, tipping her hat and raising her knees as she danced, the chorus started again with the ensembled echoing her movements, “Oh, it’s time to start livin’, time to start takin’ from this world we’re given.”

 

Pointing to Tom she declared even as she lifted her hat from her head, “You are my time, so I’ll throw off my shawl! And watching your flings be flung all over, makes me feel young all over, in just no time at all!”

 

With a great dramatic cry the number ended, the Lead Player lowering her arms and looking at Tom in expectation, who was merely staring at her with his eyebrows raised. Finally, he noted, “That was supposed to be sung by a much older woman, I think.”

 

“Well, forgive me, comrade, but Mrs. Cole didn’t exactly fit the part,” the Lead Player said with a sigh as well as a grimace, as if Mrs. Cole had truly been asked and declined. Tom Riddle nodded slowly, looking away from her for a moment before announcing, rather anticlimactically, “Well then, I suppose I’ll be on my way then.”

 

“To do what?” the Lead Player asked, watching as he slowly walked off stage.

 

Without even looking at her the young man replied, as he disappeared, “To enjoy the simple joys, of course.”

 

The Lead Player smiled rather fondly, looking for a little too long at where he had exited, before then turning back to her audience, “Spring, Hogwarts, 1943, Tom Marvolo Riddle is sixteen years old and after all this time he has discovered his own legacy, his relation to Salazar Slytherin, and with it, the Chamber of Secrets resting beneath the castle.”

 

Behind her the ensemble runs out, holding a giant snake aloft while other members of the cast scream in terror, words in blood cascading down from the walls, with a small almost ‘what can you do’ smile the Lead Player said, “It is at times a… needlessly dramatic role, but none the less, you can’t say he doesn’t play it to the best of his ability.”

 

“There is fear and suspicion,” Albus Dumbledore proclaimed as he appeared on stage.

 

“A dark future looms over us all,” Horace Slughorn joined in, and, sparing a glance to each other, both professors stated in tandem, “And in the mind of every student and every professor is a single question, who could possibly be behind this madness?”

 

She then turned from the scene, leaving the tableau of fear and suspicion suspended behind her as she continued to narrate, “Regardless, this is hardly the important part, more important, instead are the outcome. A girl, some girl no one really cares about, dies.”

 

A mousey member of the ensemble, in a pair of thick glasses, shrieked then keeled over dramatically, dragged offstage by faceless students of Hogwarts.

 

However, the stage almost seemed to grow narrower for a moment, the cast slinking to the side and disappearing, an ominous groaning sounding in the floor as Tom Riddle appeared on stage.

 

“And Tom Marvolo Riddle, performed a forbidden act of magic, and, in order to preserve his own life in this mortal world, split himself in two.”

 

For a moment, he stood perfectly still, then Tom Riddle brought the sword of Gryffindor to his chest and ran himself through, blood in the form of streamers and red lighting gushed out of him, and from the shadows the blood made, emerging from a trap door, another equally shaken Tom Riddle appeared, carrying a notebook with him.

 

“His other, nameless, half he stored inside a plain diary to preserve his glory.”

 

The original Tom Riddle dropped the sword, walked backwards, ignoring the almost pleading look his replication gave him as he reached out, unable to wander from the notebook, “And Tom Riddle left the Chamber of Secrets, while the other Tom Riddle, he remained.”

 

The original Tom Riddle exited the stage and the new one, wild eyed and bruised at the edges, gave out a harsh and desperate laugh as he watched the departure. He stared at his surroundings, in wonderous agony as if he never knew how lonesome an empty stage could be, when finally, his eyes landed on the Lead Player herself.

 

The Lead Player walked towards him, considered him for a moment, then quoted, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain. Time to die.”

 

He gave out a harsh, bitter laugh, and asked with the desperation of a replicant who had not yet met his maker and not yet accepted his bitter end in the rain, “Will I dream?”

 

“If you dreamed, what would you dream of?” the Lead Player asked instead, and he stared out, shaking his head.

 

“I don’t know,” he paused, licked his lips and considered his words, “I’d… I’d dream of him, perhaps, but I want more than him, I want…”

 

He looked towards her, and perhaps something in him recognized her as more than a mere Lead Player in a play he didn’t have the script too, because he stopped, and he paused, and in the darkness an older Lead Player, her hair pulled up, dressed in white and standing en pointe, appeared behind him.

 

He turned towards her, and, reaching out towards her pale hand, his eyes burned as the notes of the piano fell like soft rain upon them, “My days are brighter than morning air, evergreen pine and autumn blue, but all my days are twice as fair if I could share my days with you.”

 

She took his hand, stepped towards him, leaned backwards as he dipped her and the two began a pas de deux even as he continued, “My nights are warmer than fire coals, incense and stars and smoke bamboo, but nights were warm beyond compare if I could share my nights with you.”

 

She cupped his face wordlessly, him beaming at her as they turned in time, “To dance in your dreams, to shine when I need the sun, with you to hold me when dreams are done.”

 

He knelt, took her hand in his, stared up at her in wonder and adoration as a softer spotlight fell upon them, as if god smiled fondly down upon the pair, “And oh, my dearest love, if you will take my love, then all my dreams are truly begun.”

 

She backed up from him, slowly, silently, still dancing backwards, hardly seeming to touch the earth all even as he stood and slowly watched her with a look of discontent on his face, “And time weaves ribbons of memory, to sweeten life when youth is through, but I would need no memories there, if I could share my life with you.”

 

The light above him went out, slowly, so slowly, he turned up and smiled bitterly at where the light had been, and with a sigh, he took up his notebook once again, and then wandered with all the pride a broken facsimile could manage off the stage and into obscurity.

 

The Lead Player watched this silently, waiting until he had disappeared entirely with an inscrutable expression on her face, then with a clap of her hands, she said, “Meanwhile, back in Hogwarts, now that the fiasco of the Chamber of Secrets has finished and his first step to his glorious future has been taken, Tom Riddle finds himself rather disillusioned.”

 

Hogwarts reasserted itself, Tom Riddle in its center, staring unimpressed out at the audience, refusing to look anywhere near the Lead Player. The Lead Player, however, immediately walked over towards him, narrating as she did so, “He realized that a basilisk, while certainly intimidating, just did not appeal to him the way he’d thought it once would. More, he found the whole exercise rather… unfulfilling.”

 

“Stop that!” he insisted, turning towards her with spiteful blue eyes, “I can narrate myself, thank you very much.”  


“Oh, can you?” the Lead Player asked with the air of someone who knew quite well that Tom Riddle could do anything but, “Well then, comrade, what happens now?”

 

“Now? Now I wait, I graduate and in time I…”

 

“Remember, comrade, it’s a whole world of possibilities in here,” the Lead Player dutifully reminded him, “Time means nothing here, the world is your oyster, your revolution… It could be now, if you wanted it.”

 

“I don’t want…”

 

“A war is not a revolution,” the Lead Player cut him off, “One does not have to enjoy battle, barborous and bloody, to enjoy being a king.”

 

“A king?” the boy asked, a question in his eyes, no doubt thinking that he had never thought of himself as a king before, however the Lead Player was hardly put off by that.

 

“What else is a dark lord but a dread tyrannical king?” then, looking at him, she nodded to herself, “And why not, comrade, spread a little enlightenment to these poor fools a little… sunshine, if you will.”

 

The piano started again, this time in a minor pitch as notes descended one into another, the Lead Player considering him, “Back in my younger days, if things were going wrong I might sulk, I might pout. Now, I’ve learned if I just pitch in and do what’s right things will work out. And if we all could all spread a little sunshine, all could light a little fire, we all would be a little closer to our heart’s desire.”

 

Motioning to the masses, to the purebloods and mudbloods alike, Grindelwald in France, she noted, “Lord knows we’ve seen enough troubles already, we’ve had our fill of grey skies.”

 

Taking his hand in hers, looking him in the eye once again, she advised, “So put down the vinegar, take up the honey jar, you’ll catch many more flies.”

 

Then, seeing the spark in his eye as the idea took root, she went into the chorus once again, “And if we all could spread a little sunshine, all could think before we strike, we all would be a little closer to the world we’d like.”

 

Stepping away from him she assured him and the audience, “I know the parables told in the holy book I keep close on my shelf. God’s wisdom teaches me when I help others, I’m really helping myself.”

 

Finally motioning towards him, the stage, and the audience, she declared one final time, “And if we all could spread a little sunshine, all could lend a helping hand, we all could be a little closer to the promise land!”

 

With that, she tossed him the sword of Gryffindor once again, and said, “Kill Grindelwald, comrade, and you will have your crown.”

 

He paused, looked at her, laughed out loud, “Kill Grindelwald but he is…”

 

The Lead Player circled him like a shark smelling blood in the water, watching as Tom Riddle bled, “A tyrant, the tyrant of the age, if you wish to be an emperor then he cannot live.”

 

“He is the darkest wizard of the age, and I am extraordinary, yes, but I am only…”

 

“You are only destined for greatness,” the Lead Player finished for him, “Why not start now? You have the sword, you only need… the conviction.”

 

“The conviction,” he parroted dully, staring at the sword, at his reflection inside of it.

 

“Are you afraid, Tom?”

 

His lips twisted downwards, he shook his head, “No, no I am not afraid, I won’t stand aside as Grindelwald butchers the continent, just waiting for him to reach England. I won’t wait for my future any longer! I am ready for it!”

 

“Good,” the Lead Player announced, snapping her fingers as she turned, summong Grindelwald and his German wizards into the mix, “Then to France we go.”

 

However, as Tom prepared himself she paused, turned, looked over her shoulder, and sang out her second ominous warning, “Intrigue, plots to bring disaster.”

 

Then, grinning towards the audience, she announced, “Notre Dame cathedral, Paris, 1943.”

 

Tom slunk into the room, staying out of the light of the stained-glass windows while Grindelwald sat in one of the church pews, staring at the spotlights that represented the rose window.

 

“I can hear you, boy,” Grindelwald announced, not even looking as Tom paused, stared at him from the side of the stage, “There’s no need to slink like a rat in this house of god.”

 

“Does a godless man like you even believe in a god?”

 

Grindelwald turned, offered the boy a crawling smile, “My, aren’t we judgmental? Is it easy to judge me and all I’ve done from where you stand?”

 

Tom Riddle moved to sit beside him, eyes never leaving Grindelwald’s face as he slowly, but with a certainness he likely hadn’t realized he held, said, “You aren’t a king, you’re only a butcher.”

 

“And if I must be a butcher to bring order to this chaotic world of magic and the mundane then so be it,” Grindelwald responded with that too easy smile, “I have no regrets.”

 

“Those are words from the past!” Tom cried out, “Time has passed you by!”

 

Grindelwald barked out a laugh, a bitter and angry thing, “Oh yes, boy, you do judge me from on high. Eagles, osprey, they all have a better vantage than I, I who have lived in the thick of it, who have sweated, bled, and cried for this magical empire I have created!”

 

However, Tom was not swayed as he in turn spat, “You have created nothing, you have created only a war, and things must change!”

 

“And I suppose you’re the one to do it, you, orphaned mudblood,” Grindelwald sneered and a light seemed to appear in Tom’s eyes then, the light of the trampled little orphan who always had to crawl and climb for what he wanted.

 

“Well, if you truly believe that, then there’s only one thing you can do,” Grindelwald noted, nodding towards the sword at Tom’s side.

 

“What do you pray for, Grindelwald?” Tom asked suddenly, hand tightening about the hilt of his sword.

 

“Strength,” Gellert said wearily, “And may god give you the strength…”

 

With a great cry he was cut off as Tom ran the blade through him, watching as he fell from the pews, blood in the form of streamers exiting his mouth and running down from his side. Even as he fell he offered Tom Marvolo Riddle a final, mocking, smile, as if he knew something the boy didn’t.

 

However, whatever this secret was, he did not say, it would die with him.

 

Tom stood over the corpse, looking out towards the audience, and he asked, slowly, in song, “Why won’t my hands stop shaking, when all the earth is still, when all the ghosts are waking?”

 

Hopeful brass notes sounded out as he sheathed his sword, looking towards the rose window, a slow smile crawling across his face, “So many steps need taking, so many plans need making, I think I will, I think I will…”

 

The Lead Player appeared from off stage, bowing curtly towards him, handing him a crown of thorns, “Your majesty, Voldemort.”

 

He took it with wonder, like he had the sword earlier, turning it this way and that in his hands, “Morning glow, morning glow, starts to glimmer when you know winds of change are set to blow and sweep this whole land through. Morning glow is long past due.”

 

Slowly, the stage that was the church filled with light, as if the sun was rising through the window, “Morning glow, fill the earth, come and shine for all you’re worth. We’ll be present at the birth of old faith looking new. Morning glow is long past due.”

 

Behind him, the ensemble, his people now, appeared, singing in time with the Lead Player, “Oh, morning glow, I’d like to help you grow.”

 

Tom’s smile was infectious and delighted as he stared out at them all, “We should have started long ago!”

 

The song became brighter with the light, as if it too were rising with the dawn, all singing together, “So, morning glow all day long, while we sing tomorrow’s song, never knew we could be so strong but now it’s very clear…”

 

Tom finished for them, rising to stand on the dais, “Morning glow is almost here!” and, holding the sword aloft he cried out, “Morning glow by your light, we can make the new day bright, and the phantoms of the night will fade into the past. Morning glow is here at last!”

 

The song faded, Tom breathing heavily standing on his pedestal, and there, in the ensemble, the horcrux asked, “Is it time yet?”

 

The Lead Player shot him a dirty look much to Tom’s confusion as he looked down at his subjects, hitting the horcrux across the back of the head as she chided, “No, not now!”

 

“Well, it seemed like the end of the show,” the horcrux noted rather drily.

 

“I told you, act two,” the Lead Player reminded them, looking towards all the cast as she said this, Tom watching her every move.

 

Then with a sigh she turned towards the audience as the cast began to move towards off stage, Tom watching them go, his confusion only mounting as the Lead Player explained, “Look, I think we’re going to take a little break here. After all, attention spans are shorter than they used to be.”

 

The Lead Player offered a reassuring grin as the set began to be dismantled, “Don’t you worry, we’ll be back, and we will bring you the finale we promised! A climax you will remember for the rest of your lives!”

 

A great staircase then appeared, the Lead Player motioning towards it dramatically and directing Tom Riddle’s attention to it, slowly, he ascended, staring down at his people as the spotlight shone down upon him, crowned the sacrificial king.

 

And the curtain fell for intermission.


	2. Act II

The curtain rose and with it the ensemble before daring and marvelous acts of acrobatics, all glitter and glamor on the stage while the throne appeared, a somewhat less eager Tom Riddle sitting upon it.

 

“King Voldemort, emperor of the continent, is preparing to hear petitions,” the Lead Player announced before walking towards the throne, perching on the arm rest next to Tom, and watching as Tom attempted to settle his court. A mob appeared before the throne, Tom’s eyebrows raising as he watched them clamor in.

 

Finally, Tom declared, “Enough, you will be dealt with fairly and equally, but one at a time, if you please.”

 

“Oh, sire,” a man cried out, on his knees before the emperor, “I am a poor man…”

 

Tom rubbed a hand over his eyes, “Stand, you may stand, do not grovel in the dirt before me.”

 

He looked down at the other kneeling subjects before him, motioning with a hand for them to stand, “You may all stand.”

 

“Oh, thank you sire,” the old man said as he awkwardly stood, ignoring the way Tom’s eyes narrowed in distaste, “I’m a poor man, a muggle born, and I own not one millimeter of land on which I’ve worked, and it’s not fair!”

 

With a sigh and a wave of his hand Tom said, clearly not invested at all in this, “Fine, then you shall own the land on which you work.”

 

“King Voldemort, the just,” the Lead Player announced next to him, ignoring the flicker of distaste that passed across Tom’s face as he glanced towards her.

 

“Sire, now that you’ve given all of our land to the mudbloods,” a noblewoman of pureblood stated, ignoring the outcry of the peasants, “We loyal purebloods have no source of income and therefore cannot pay taxes.”

 

With another sigh and another flat look of distaste, Tom announced, “Then I shall abolish taxes!”

 

“King Voldemort, the generous,” the Lead Player added with a musing look, a small smile appearing on her lips as she squeezed Tom’s shoulders.

 

“With no taxes, sire, you will have no money to support an army,” a German wizard announced from behind him, looking meaningfully at Tom as he did so.

 

“An army?” Tom asked, “Fine then, we won’t have a bloody military, we won’t have bloody peasants, we won’t have bloody taxes, and we won’t have a bloody army! Now, is that quite it? Is there anything else I can do for you people today?!”

 

“King Voldemort, the peaceful,” the Lead Player amended.

 

“Voldemort, sire,” a soldier cried out, dashing onto the stage and clearing his throat as he spoke his news, “It is my duty to inform you that the Soviet infidels have attacked in the east. They have destroyed three villages and murdered thousands of your royal subjects.”

 

“Well, isn’t that peachy,” Tom said slowly.

 

“But, they will withdraw on one condition.”

 

“What’s the condition?”

 

“He demands your reproductive organs on a pike.”

 

“Well, we’re not doing that,” Tom said slowly, “I suppose we’ll have to send out the army.”

 

The first German soldier, standing behind the throne, narrowed his eyes as he reminded Tom, “But sire, you have abolished the army.”

 

“Right,” Tom said slowly rubbing his face with a sigh, “Then I suppose we’re going to need those taxes.”

“But sire, without land we cannot pay your taxes!”

 

“Then I suppose we’re enslaving the bloody mudbloods again, and if they disagree… hang them.”

 

And the mob descended once again, Tom in the center of it all, trapped upon his throne and seething with every shouted complaint that was lobbed at him.

 

And as they surrounded him, demanding land, money, militaries, and more, the Lead Player smirking, announced, “King Voldemort, the unpopular.”

 

“Get out!” Tom shouted, and when they did not, he looked out into the distance, almost haunted, as he announced, “I need to pray.”

 

He stalked forward, banishing all his petitioners, and fell to his knees as if he truly was in prayer. The Lead Player followed, stalking behind him.

“Pray?” she asked, circling him, “But you’re the king, what in the world would you pray for?”

 

“Strength,” he said rather bitterly.

 

The Lead Player considered this, nodding slowly, “Alright, is there anything else you’d like?”

 

“Yes…” he said slowly then, the words torn out of him like teeth with plyers, he stated, “I would like my sword back out of Grindelwald’s chest.”

 

“You want it,” the Lead Player cried with delight, “You got it!”

 

With a wave of her hands the stage darkened, a storm seemed to arise as she announced, “Illusion, fantasy to study.”

 

And there, miraculously, as if he had never left at all, was Grindelwald seated upon the throne, the Hungarian warlord who had ground Europe almost entirely into dust. Tom stood, amazed, staring at the man in awe and perhaps a bit in fear.

 

For a moment, the two stared at each other, then the mob returned, descending upon Grindelwald, who took it all in with the same distaste Tom himself had shown. Tom watched as the throne and the rest retreated off stage, the Lead Player standing beside him.

 

“I have wasted my life,” Tom said finally after they had at last disappeared. He threw the crown off his head with a laugh, “I have gotten everything I dreamed of, and none of it is fulfilling. My life is… meaningless. If there’s something worthy of my pursuit then I don’t think I’ll ever find it.”

 

“But you will, Tom,” the Lead Player prophesized, “I promise you, comrade, you will.”

 

A piano began to start playing in uneven time, the song almost staggering to its feet as Tom stood there, staring into a future that now seemed so very pointless.

 

“You may not believe this,” the Lead Player said as she slung an arm around his shoulder, “But things are going exactly according to plan.”

 

“What plan could that possibly be?” Tom asked, but before he could ask anything more, the Lead Player sat him down upon a stool and began the next number as she stared down at him.

 

“You look frenzied, you look frazzled,” she ran a hand through his hair, musing as she did so, “Peaked as any alp.”

 

She grinned, placed her head beside his ear as she further exclaimed, “Flushed and rushed and razzle-dazzled. Dry your lips, damp your scalp.”

 

She moved to his other side, to face him fully, look him in the eyes as she said, “Now I can see you’re in a rut, in disarray. And I’m not one to butt in, but in fact, I must say…”

 

She cupped his face in her pale hands and looked at him with a kind of tenderness that had been absent thus far, “If you’d take it easy, trust awhile, don’t look blue, don’t look back, you’ll pull through in just a while, ‘cause you’re on the right track.”

 

“On the right track,” Tom repeated back, disbelief coloring his eyes as he looked at her, grabbed her thin wrists in his hands, “On the right track.”

 

He pulled her hands away from his face, looked down at them, repeating again, “On the right track, on the right track.”

 

“Take it easy, sonny,” she said, standing from her crouched position so that, with him sitting, she was almost taller than him, “Take it easy, sonny. Take it easy…”

 

The music sped itself up as the two stared at each other, the Lead Player holding that leading note until she asked, “Why look flurried?”

 

“Flustered,” Tom dully repeated.

 

“Keep those…”

 

“Hopes aloft,” Tom finished for her with a desperation that was so foreign to himself.

 

“Keep cool as custard,” the Lead Player added with delight, pulling him from his seat to stand with her.

 

“Trying hard,” Tom started only for the Lead Player to finish, “Stepping soft.”

 

Then, in tandem, looking at one another, they both sang out, “There’s no trick to saying sensible, despite each cul-de-sac, ‘cause each step’s indispensable when you’re on the right track.”

 

Then as Tom repeated, with more hope this time, “On the right track,” as the Lead Player with a shark like grin reminded him even as she danced, to “Take it easy.”

 

Then, taking his hand in hers, she pulled him into a dance routine, his feet uncomfortable and ungraceful without knowing the steps she had clearly long since memorized as the music sped up once again. He watched the movements of her feet, how easily they slid between one step and the next and with an uncertain look on his face tried desperately to follow. Then, suddenly, he had it, and the spotlight fell upon them, watching them as he watched her and stepped in time.

 

A grin on his face, Tom continued, while the Lead Player moved off and narrated.

 

“And so, Tom went back to school, took his NEWT exams and took no pleasure from them, graduated with honors and took no pleasure in that either, watched as in 1945 Dumbledore took out Grindelwald and freed Europe. Tom decided to become a store clerk, and he discovered that…”  


Tom shot them a rather dry look as he paused for a moment, “Customer service was even worse than being an unpopular tyrant.”

 

As Tom continued through his dance routine the Lead Player continued, “He then returned to Hogwarts and attempted to become the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. However, he soon discovered that…”

 

“Even though he was the heir of Slytherin, he was still a mudblood orphan this whole time!” he shouted, his face no longer containing any optimism at all.

 

With that, the Lead Player entered the fray once again, standing next to him and pulling him along, “Many, when things get dank, will feel their grip go. We stay tranquil, spirits high, pulses low.”

Tom interrupted her, eyes burning as he stepped forward, hands falling on her shoulders in desperation as a terrible conclusion snuck upon him, “But, what I’ve left behind looks trifling, what’s ahead looks black! Am I doomed to spend my lingering on…”

 

“Lingering on,” the Lead Player repeated for him.

 

“Just lingering on,” Tom said in desperation, staring into his desolate future without purpose or direction.

 

And together they both said, “Malingering on the right…”

 

“Oh, I’ll never find it!” Tom cried out backing away from her and looking out towards the black empty abyss that was the world beyond the stage, “Never, never, never!”

 

“Easy, comrade,” the Lead Player said, taking his arm in hers and grinning across at him, “You’re on the right track.”

 

He sat down, placed his head in his hands, and the Lead Player considered him there for a moment, eyes lingering on him, and then, as he wasn’t looking, she offered him a rather satisfied smile.

 

She moved towards the rear of the stage, towards a set of red curtains and cried out, “Enter, Lily!”

 

A drumroll, a cymbal crash, and nothing happened. The Lead Player, slightly more impatient, called out, “Enter, Lily!”

 

There was a curse from somewhere backstage, the shattering of glass, oddly the sound of cackling hens, then finally, the flustered, older version of the Lead Player, now with feathers in her hair and far less grace, and an outfit that belonged in a 1980’s thrift store, offered the Lead Player an awkward grin as she stepped out from behind the curtains, “Would you believe that I didn’t hear you the first time?”

 

However, the Lead Player herself, looked hardly amused. Instead, with predatory grace, she stepped forward as she asked, “How many years have you been playing this role?”

 

Lily opened her mouth to answer but couldn’t get a word out as the Lead Player said, “It’s alright, it’s okay, we’ll just do it again. Alright, we’ll do it again…”

 

The Lead Player stalked out to where she had started, turning suddenly, and realizing Lily was still there staring at her with wide green eyes. The Lead Player stared until Lily, slowly and uncertainly, ducked back behind the curtain.

 

“Enter, Lily,” the Lead Player announced, moving her hands to motion as Lily now burst through the curtains with a smile on her face. As she waved at the audience the Lead Player continued, “A lovely young time travelling school girl, who is otherwise a completely ordinary woman… It was the best we could do people, try to roll with it.”

 

“I am a lovely young time travelling school girl,” Lily repeated rather dumbly with wide eyes, clearly having been spoon-fed the line, finally she darted over towards Tom, who at some point during all of this had collapsed onto the stage itself.

 

“When I first saw Le… Tom, in this world, I found him lying on the side of a road,” Lily narrated as she strolled, hands in pockets, towards him. Looking down at him, poking him with a shoe, she said, “There he was, he didn’t know where he was, and he looked so lost and exhausted, you’d swear he was dead.”

 

Lily paused, looked around, as if waiting for something to happen before a quick glance at the Lead Player had her looking back towards Tom, picking him up and dragging him off to a bed which appeared on the stage, “So I said: Pick him up, put him to bed. See that he’s bathed and clothed and fed. As I said, how could I foretell he’d clean up, oh, so very well.”

 

Then dumping him on the bed, watching as he woke up with a strange expression on her face, she continued, “Imagine my surprise, when I raised my eyes, and there he was.”

 

Immediately, the first thing he did, was reach for a casket of wine.

 

“So, stranger in my bed,” Lily enunciated with precision, as if, again, this title had been spoon-fed to her, “I’m sure you’re curious about where you are, what you’re doing here, who I am…”

 

“No,” Tom answered shortly, and there in his eyes, was the lack of will to live that had left him collapsed on the side of the road.

 

“My name is Lily,” she announced, “And I am a young, lovely, time travelling school girl… Who is otherwise rather ordinary.”

 

Tom scoffed, clearly uninterested in anything she had to say even as she rambled onwards, “I own this bed, and this estate, through completely legal and ordinary means, of course. Ordinary, boring, legal means… Which you don’t care about at all, good, because I’ve completely forgotten the backstory.”

 

The keys on a piano were struck, Lily looked up, while Tom simply laid on his back, staring forlornly at the ceiling. Lily muttered to herself, “Right, the musical number, I keep forgetting about that.”

 

Then, singing with a rather unconvincing smile on her face she announced, “I’m your average ordinary kind of woman. Competent and neat, making life a treat. Others as nice, you meet often, I know. At least once or twice, every lifetime or so.”

 

Tom turned further from her, grabbed one of the pillows from the bed and held it over his ear as he turned on his side. Lily however, ignored this as she sat next to him on the bed, “I’m your everyday, customary, kind of woman. Practical as salt, modest to a fault, conservative with a budget, liberal with a meal, just your average ideal.”

 

Then, Lily looked down at Tom, at his back turned from her, “My telling you this may seem sudden and strange. It may not interest you much at all right now, but things change, things change.”

 

Then, looking away rather bitterly, a humorless smile on her lips, she added, “Still, I’ll understand if I’m not your kind of woman. Anyone can make, one terrible mistake, and I’ve no special glamor, no bait I can twirl. For I’m just a plain, every day, commonplace, come-what-may, average, ordinary, wonderful girl.”

 

She let the song end dramatically, standing now in the center of the spotlight and staring out the audience, then, sniffing, she turned back to Tom, “I’m required to sing that, by the way, it’s part of the well… The role, I guess you’d call it.”

 

Tom made no move, he laid there instead, as if he was already dead.

 

Lily took this in, eyebrows raised, and then she stated, “… You look like you’re taking this all much too seriously.”

 

She sat on the bed then, considered her words carefully, then said, “Lenin, it’s a play.”

 

At this Tom removed the pillow from his head and slowly turned to look at her as she continued, “All the world’s a stage it’s one great, dramatic… play. Not a very good one, but it’s a play none the less.”

“Are you daft?”

 

“No, just time travelling… and ordinary,” Lily tacked on at the end, “I am required to consistently remind you of that, lest you forget.”

 

“Forget that you are ordinary?” he asked.

 

“Yes, that I’m just your average ordinary kind of… Oh you know the song, I just sang it. The point being, I am not alarming at all… To be fair, they did try to get someone more… normal, but alas, it was either me or Hermione Jean Granger.”

 

“Who?”

 

“She who is not appearing in this play,” Lily quickly quipped back with a rather blank look on her face.

 

Lily sighed, looked at him, “Right, well, I’ll leave you to it…”

 

She stood then, walked away for a little moment and announced to the audience, “And so Lily did wait, and wait, and realize that she had to cultivate Tom’s interest in the world somehow. Unfortunately, she ran out of ideas before she even started.”

 

“Tom,” Lily said shortly, “You’ve been lying in this bed for seven days now, what is the matter?”

 

Tom sat up, glaring, “It is nothing you could possibly understand!”

 

“Oh, I think I’ll be the judge of that,” Lily said, he didn’t answer and, sitting on the bed with a sigh, Lily then said blandly, “Let me guess, you’ve been searching for some meaning to your life, some significant action that you can take that makes life slightly less absurd, and though you have tried, and tried, and received everything you ever wanted, you have failed utterly.”

 

He looked over towards her, eyes wide, as she looked back at him with raised eyebrows, “I often have the same issue myself, however, it’s hardly worth getting worked up about.”  


“What?”

 

“Life, inherently, has no meaning, any attempt to pretend otherwise is simply sad,” Lily said, looking at him pointedly, clearly stating, without stating at all, that she found him to be rather… sad.

 

“No, no, you have gone off script far enough, again,” the Lead Player stepped in from off stage, sending a warning glare to Lily.

 

“Oh, right, was there something about dead Cedric in there, and how that made me sad, and I lay down for five days then got up on the sixth because I had shit to do? I just… I always forget it, it’s not a very good line and… and not to him, they’ve never looked so much like him before and…”

 

“I don’t care how good you think the line is!” the Lead Player exclaimed, running a hand through her hair, “All you have to do is say it, or do you really want us to go replacing you with, Hermione Granger, the time travelling encyclopedia.”

 

“Oh, no, thank you, I am perfectly happy with my existence,” Lily interrupted, “I will… Again, right, again.”

 

She coughed, stood dramatically and looked Tom square in the eye, then, with a hand to her forehead she loudly declared, “I, Tom, too, know despair! For you see, when I was nothing but a not time-travelling school girl, Cedric Diggory, the love of my life, died! Slaughtered by a man who looked like a snake. And I wept, held him in my arms and wept, for five days I wept! But on the sixth, when he was still dead, and I was still crying, I got up and realized there were things that had to be done!”

 

Then, pausing, taking a breath, she straightened and said, “Tom, I’m all alone in this estate, I’m removed from my time, I can’t make this work by myself, I need your help.”

 

However, Tom was looking between her and the Lead Player, sitting up with a rather furrowed brow as his eyes darted from one to the other, “You two…”

 

“Oh, yes, we are technically the same person,” Lily said with a nod, “It’s… Try not to think about it too carefully.”

 

“But how and… why?”

 

“That’s none of your concern, comrade,” the Lead Player interjected, “None of yours to tell either, Lily, you don’t need to remind him of the state of the world at constant intervals. It will only confuse him, it is his first time after all.”

 

Slowly then, with that predatory casualness, the Lead Player slunk off stage once again, leaving Lily and Tom supposedly alone, Lily staring off to where she’d disappeared with a strange look in her eyes. Finally, she turned back to Tom, who had seemed to have lost all interest in the world once again, and she let out a deep sigh.

 

Lily paused for a moment before clapping her hands together, “Right, off the bed, off to work, you have a song to sing about how great you are at… everything. Go off, do it, and I’ll be here being… perfectly ordinary.”

 

“A song?”

 

Lily pushed him off the bed, forcing him to stumble forward almost in a daze, as Lily began to narrate once again as the set changed dramatically, a farmland taking the place of the bedroom while the Lead Player strolled through and observed the set changes, “Well, Tom was finally out of bed, and working, and doing stuff on a farm for whatever inconceivable reason, and slowly he became part of everything.”

 

Tom stood in the center of this ruckus, if possible, his eyes growing duller.

 

“A part of our everyday lives,” Lily continued, offering Tom and the audience a rather forced grin.

 

Tom, emptying feed for the ducks, spared a glance towards Lily even as the Lead Player hung over his shoulder with a shark like grin, “How often do we do this?”

 

“Every day,” Lily answered, again with that rather false enthusiasm.

 

“Every day?” Tom repeated, the look on his face saying more than enough.

 

“Every day,” Lily repeated back, her smile, if possible, growing even further and more strained. Tom then wandered off, a rather murderous look on his face as Lily expanded, “At first, Tom didn’t show much enthusiasm for the work, but as time went on…”

 

Tom threw down the silver bucket he had been carrying, kicking it across the stage in a rage, as Lily watched, her smile disappearing as she continued her narration, “He showed no enthusiasm.”

 

Afterwards, clapping one of the working peasants on the back, Tom offered her a polite smile, “Was there anything else today, Lily?”

 

Lily stared at him dumbly for a moment, blinking, and then said, “Right, yes, there’s… The… roof, on the chicken house, it’s sprung a leak. Can you fix it?”

 

“Thanks Tom,” Lily said, wandering off with a wave, not even giving him a chance to deny it or rage at her.

 

“Oh this,” Tom said to himself, motioning to himself in front of all of the animals, “This is not who I am, this is… This is most certainly not what I have been looking for!”

 

With that the piano keys were struck once again, this time in a lilting almost self-ironic melody as Tom started in, “Patching the roof and pitching the hay is not my idea of a perfect day. When you’re extraordinary gotta do extraordinary things.”

 

Bitterly, turning towards where Lily had left, he sneered and continued, “I’m not the type who loses sleep over the size of the compost heap. When you’re extraordinary you think about extraordinary things.”

 

Motioning to himself again, as if to show to the audience just how grandiose he was, he continued, “That’s the reason I’ll never be the kind of man who dwells on how moths got into the tapestry or why the dungeon smells.”

 

He sighed then, glaring at the animals surrounding him, “It’s hard to feel special, it’s hard to feel big, feeding the turtle and walking the pig. It’s so secondary, to someone who is very extraordinary like me.”

 

Then clawing at his hair in anger and despair at his surroundings he quickly spat out, “If the moat won’t stop leaking, and the goat won’t stop shrieking, and the griffin keeps losing its hair… If the west wing is rotting, and our best wine is clotting, well, I’m terribly sorry, but I don’t care!”

 

Throwing his arms out to the audience in desperation he stated, “I’ve got to be someone who lives all of his life in superlatives! When you’re extraordinary, you gotta do extraordinary things.”

 

Tom turned to his surroundings, arms up, as if asking them how exactly Tom Riddle had ended up in this situation, “Every so often a man has a day he truly can call his. Well, here I am to seize my day, if someone would just tell me when the hell it is!”

 

With one final cry out he demanded, “Oh, give me my chance, and give me my wings, and don’t make me think about every day things. They’re unnecessary, to someone who is very extraordinary, like me!”

 

Standing, breathing heavily, staring out at the audience with a blank look on his face, Tom declared, “That’s it, I am done, I am getting out of here.”

 

Lily, at that moment, stepped back in with a rabbit in her hands, “And then, Lily’s rabbit got sick!”

 

Tom stopped dead in his tracks, turned slowly, ever so slowly, to look at her and the white rabbit in her arms. He made no movement, no sound, and yet there seemed to be a wave of hatred pouring off of him.

 

“And it was no ordinary rabbit either, it was Lily’s favorite rabbit in the entire universe, and it was the first time she had gone to Tom for help,” here, Lily gave him a rather pointed look.

 

Finally, with a sneer, he asked, “And what, exactly, Lily, do you want me to do about it?”

 

Lily looked down at the unmoving rabbit in her arms, then across at him, “Say something hopeful, perhaps.”

 

He looked down at the rabbit, back up at her, and said, flatly, “This is a very sick rabbit, Lily… I think it’s going to die.”

 

“Oh, that would be very bad,” Lily said, her face paling rather dramatically, then coughing awkwardly, looking up at the ceiling, she said, “This is the uh… part where we have sex.”

 

He stopped again, eyes wide, then asked, “What?”

 

“It’s… rather sudden, I’ve frankly never liked this part,” Lily confessed with a wince, “I think it’s rage-sex, at first, or pity-sex for my pet Rabbit, it’s something anyways!”

 

She stopped them looked at him, almost in awe, as she quietly remarked, “You know, I do believe you are the first Tom Riddle to complain, most just jump right in.”

“We are not having sex,” he said, rather flatly, but Lily looked away for a moment.

 

“Oh, Tom, you’ll find… I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Lily leaned in, a look of warning on her face, “It’s in the script, and besides, you’ve tried everything else. You’ve tried academics, battle, kingship, your horcrux even had a taste of love or else devotion. Sex is… it’s all you’ve got left, comrade.”

 

“Sex, sex is all I have left,” he said slowly, almost uncertainly.

 

“Sex is all you have left,” Lily repeated, and for a moment they stared at each other, waiting for the other to move, then he let out a great choking laugh.

 

“Don’t worry, it’s not actually sex,” Lily said as his laughter died down, “It’s a metaphor, they’ll just spin us on a bed for a while, we’ll hang out under the covers and ta-da, the illusion of intercourse. After all, it will make no difference to you.”

 

“Make no difference to me? What do you mean?”

 

She gave him a rather pitying look, “Sex, Tom, is not your purpose.”

 

She held out her hand to him, giving him what was likely supposed to be a sultry look, and motioned rather garishly towards the bed, “So, what do you say, lover?”

 

For a moment, he said nothing, merely raised his eyebrows, then, with a grin, he took her hand and replied, “Well, if I must then I suppose I must.”

 

Lily pulled him to the bed, where they indeed disappeared under the covers as the bed whirled in place, a sexual act clearly implied to taking place until the pair emerged grinning from underneath the covers, Tom in hysterics and Lily laughing in delight with him.

 

Finally, the Lead Player arrived on stage once again with a look of amusement that she spared for the pair, “Look, I think we’re gonna skip part of this, nothing much really happens, little bit of this, little bit of that…”

 

The Lead Player gave her nod to the hysterically laughing couple on the bed.

 

“But, the seasons changed,” the Lead Player announced, “As they always do, and the days were filled with those every day things, seeds to be sown, fences to be mended, and finally, a love song to be sung…”

 

The Lead Player motioned to Tom then, who was giving Lily a rather curious look, as if he himself was not sure what he was feeling as Lily looked fondly back.

 

The piano began to softly play again, as Tom, almost in wonder sang out, “Sitting on the floor and talking ‘til dawn.”

 

“Candles and confidences,” Lily finished for him.

 

“Trading old beliefs and humming old songs,” Tom said, that puzzled look on his face only growing as he stared at her.

 

“And lowering old defenses,” Lily finished.

 

“Singing a love song,” they sang in tandem, both as surprised by this as the other, “Love song…”

 

“Private little jokes and silly pet names,” Tom said with a fond disgust, as if he could not quite believe that he had somehow stooped to this of all things.

 

“Lavender soap and lotions,” Lily finished, earning an amused smile from him.

 

With that same almost disgusted fondness he added, “All of the clichés and all of the games.”

 

Only for Lily to finish, with a rather knowing look of her own, “And all of the strange emotions.”

 

“Singing a love song,” they sang in time again, “Love song…”

 

“They say the whole is greater than the sum of the parts it’s made of,” Tom noted, taking her hand in his, “Well, if it’s true of anything it’s true of love.”

 

Looking at her, at her hand in his, he asked, “Because how can you define a look or a touch?”

 

“How can you weigh a feeling?” Lily asked in return, also looking down at their joined hands.

 

“Taken by themselves, now, they don’t mean much,” Tom said rather drily with that quirk of his lips.

 

“Together they send you reeling into a love song,” they said together, “Love song…”

 

Quietly, softly, the song ended as soon as it had begun, the pair left staring at each other, searching for something ineffable in the other’s eyes. Finally, abruptly, Lily announced, “You know, Tom, it’s been a year now.”

 

“Hm?” he asked, moving off the bed and placing his shoes onto his feet.

 

“A year, it’s been a year since I found you and brought you here… My, how time flies,” she stopped turned to look at him then said slowly, almost with desperation, “You know, you mean quite a bit to me, even in a setting like this you mean… You mean so very much.”

 

“What are you talking about?”

 

Lily closed her eyes, breathed out, then said, “This has been a good year, for you, for me, I hope we’ll have many more like it in this ordinary life we share.”

 

He paused, it was as if he had been struck, a sword through his stomach, then abruptly, he stood, and said, “I must leave.”

 

“Why?” but Lily asked it flatly, as if she had already asked it a thousand times before and already knew his answer long before he said it, as if it had been scripted down in a play whose part Tom had never read but acted out to the best of his ability.

 

“Because life must be more than this!” he hissed out, looking at her, “This… This ordinary world you live in! I will not waste my life doing the same damn thing every day!”

 

“And if there isn’t, if this is it, if this is… life?” Lily asked but he only shook his head with a fierce desperation.

 

“No, there has to be,” then, more confidently, looking her in the eyes, “I know there is.”

 

He took her hands in his with a sigh, a slight regretful smile, then sang out his reprise, “Rivers belong where they can ramble, eagles belong where they can fly, I’ve got to be…”

 

Even as he sang though, Lily stood, closed her eyes and composed herself, shutting him out of mind and thought, but he was already walking off stage, already gone, and then Lily was left in the dark.

 

She let out a sour, bitter laugh, glanced up at the lights, and asked, “May I have a light, please?”

 

There was nothing, no sound, no movement, no spectacle on the stage, just Lily herself standing there. She repeated, more desperately this time, “Please?”

 

A single, solitary, bright spotlight shone down on her, she offered a slight smile in gratitude before shoving her hands into her pockets, staring off to where Tom had walked off the stage.

 

Then, slowly, softly and filled with regret and nostalgia, she sang out, “I guess I’ll miss the man, explain it if you can. His face was far from fine, but still I’ll miss his face, and wonder if he’s missing mine.”

 

Looking towards the audience, shaking her head, she continued, “Some days he wouldn’t say a pleasant word all day, some days he’d scowl and curse, but there were other days when he was really even worse.”

 

She offered a soft nostalgic and fond laugh, then, continuing, “Some men are heroes, some men outshine the sun. Some men are simple good men, this man wasn’t one.”

 

Walking slightly, the spotlight following her as she smiled, thinking back on Tom who had so recently occupied the stage with her, “And I won’t miss his moods, his gloomy solitudes, his blunt abrasive style.”

 

“But please don’t get me wrong,” she implored the audience, “He was the best to come along, in a long, long while…”

 

Lily stopped, shook her head, looked off where he had gone and shouted one last warning, “Oh, what fools these mortals be!”

 

And then, just like him, she walked off of the stage and out of her role once again even as Tom Riddle, walked on again, for the final time.

 

“Alright, what’s next?” he asked, hands thrown in the sky as he paced the barren stage, “What do I try now?”

 

He laughed at the emptiness, a hand through his dark hair as he asked, “Didn’t you promise me? Promise me something completely fulfilling? Well?”

 

No one answered, even as he walked and laughed and searched for someone or something that even he couldn’t name.

 

“There must be something!” he cried out, and with that, he turned, as an ethereal humming took place, to the same haunting melody with which the Lead Player had first beckoned the audience into watching the show.

“There is something, Tom,” the Lead Player stepped out from behind a green curtain, looking at him with green eyes that almost glowed, “And we’ve got it.”

 

“The only completely perfect act in our repertoire,” she expanded as she stepped closer, gesturing with wide arms as she explained with a grin, “The finale.”

 

There was a great cheer from each of the cast members, ensemble and main cast, and then Tom watched as Grindelwald’s old marching tune played again, in a haunting discordant key as the Lead Player and two cast members began their tap routine in celebration and showmanship, the music sped up, the dancing and acrobatics increased until it finally hit a climax, the cast yelling, “Sunup!”

 

Tom stared, his eyes empty, and finally he asked, “That’s it? That’s the finale?”

 

“No,” the cast members all said, laughing, and the Lead Player walked towards him, “No, that was just the big build up.”

 

Then, a finger pointed towards his chest, the Lead Player said, “You’re the finale.”

 

“Me?” Tom asked and the Lead Player nodded.

 

The horcrux appeared at the side of the stage, a flaming torch in hand, and looking towards the Lead Player he asked, “Now?”

 

“Now,” the Lead Player confirmed with a nod, then, watched, as with a grin, the horcrux moved towards the center of the stage, joined by a member of the ensemble who also held a torch aloft. Tom backed away from it, face arrested in dull confusion, until he was standing once again next to the Lead Player.

 

“Tom,” the Lead Player instructed, “You will leap from the highest height into the hottest fire.”

 

“Become part of the fire, Tom!” a cast member shouted.

 

“Engulfed by the fire,” another cast member added.

 

“Become fire itself!”

 

“And in the flame, you will become the gloriousness of life and death!”

 

“And light again!”

 

“Wait,” Tom held up his hands, backing up from the cast members who now surrounded him, “You want me to jump and burn in fire.”

 

“Tom,” the Lead Player started, moving towards him, placing her hands on his shoulders, “You are an extraordinary human being with extraordinary aspirations and dreams. You, comrade, deserve an extraordinary climax.”

 

“Like the sun, blazing in the sky!” the cast members cheered in unison while Tom, haunted, stared out into the dark pit of the audience.

 

She then moved next to him, placed her arm through his and looked out towards the audience with an inhuman spark in her green eyes, dramatic music began to play as she whispered in his ear, “The sun, at its zenith.”

 

Then, singing, she beseeched him, “Think about the sun, Pippin, think about her golden glance. How she lights the world up, well, now it’s your chance. With the guardian of splendor, inviting you to dance, Pippin, think about the sun.”

 

The Lead Player walked from him while all about him the cast members chanted in excitement about the sun. He stared off into the distance, his eyes dead already.

 

“It is time, Tom, for you to do something truly extraordinary!” the Lead Player cried out towards him.

 

“Think how you’ll shine!” Grindelwald said as he put a hand on Tom’s shoulder, grinning at him.

 

“Like the glow of morning,” Dumbledore finished for him with an equally eager look on his face.

 

“You will burn in our memories forever!” Slughorn declared as he pointed out towards the audience and the future that resided with them. The cast members echoed Slughorn’s words, “Forever!”

 

“Think about your life, Pippin,” the Lead Player continued, whirling back towards him, and taking his hand in hers.

 

“Days are tame and nights the same,” Grindelwald sang into Tom’s ear.

 

“Now think about the beauty,” the Leading Player continued, stroking Tom’s pale face with one hand, “In one perfect flame. And the angels of the morning are calling out your name…”

 

“Pippin,” they all implored with the Lead Player finishing for them, “Think about the sun.”

 

The music sped up as they all chimed in, circling him, watching as his confidence seemed to leave him entirely as he took in the pointlessness of life, “Think about your life Pippin, think of all the dreams you’ve had. Think about the moment that’s so close at hand. When the power and the glory are there at your command, Pippin, think about your life.”

 

They crowded closer to him, singing in his ears as he stood there, a perfect rag doll of a human being, “Think about the sun, Pippin, think about her golden glance. How she lights the world up, well, now it’s your chance. With the guardian of splendor, inviting you to dance, Pippin, think about the sun.”

 

Above him, the bright spotlight still shone, highlighting the paleness of his face and the emptiness of his blue eyes as he took in his surroundings and his fate, “Think about your life, Pippin, think about the dreams you’ve had. Think about the moment that’s so close at hand. When the power and the glory are there at your command… When the power and the glory are there at your command, Pippin, think about your life.”

 

Then, together, one final time, the cast member motioned towards Tom Riddle and everything he was, singing his own words in reprisal, “Rivers belong where they can ramble, eagles belong where they can fly!”

 

However, Tom, with that blank look on his face, took a step backwards, shaking his head as he sang, “I’m not a river, or a giant bird that soars to the sea. And if I’m never tied to anything, I’ll never be free…”

 

He looked down, straight at the Lead Player, as if seeing her truly for the first time while she ducked her hat lower, as if to cover her face, “What are you looking at, comrade, get on with the finale!”

 

He grinned then, seeing something in her despite herself, looking around at the stage and his surroundings, “I wanted magic shows and miracles, mirages to touch. I wanted such a little thing from life, I wanted so much.”

 

He stepped past the Leading Player, to where, in the shadows, Lily was waiting. He walked towards her, smile on his face, and took her hand in his, “I never came close, my love. We nearly came near.”

 

He shook his head, still smiling even as she hopelessly smiled back, “It never was there, I think it was here.”

 

“Alright,” the Lead Player said slowly, “Alright, you’ll see what it’s like without us. Take down the tent!”

 

The crew began to dismantle the stage, the colored spotlights winked out, then, when this was done, the Lead Player turned back to the pair, “Well, that’s not too flattering, is it Tom?”

 

However, Tom no longer seemed to care.

 

Tom motioned to the stage then, to what was left of it, pulling Lily in with him as, for the first time, he saw what she had always seen, “They showed me crimson, gold and lavender, a shining parade. But there’s no color I can have on earth that won’t finally fade.”

 

“Fade? You don’t even know what she is, you don’t even know what play you’re in!” the Lead Player scoffed, “Reality is a cold dark place, Tom, I guarantee that you won’t like it.”

 

“When I wanted worlds to paint,” Tom continued, painting the stage with his hands alone, “And costumes to wear. I think it was here, because it never was there.”

 

The Lead Player turned from them, a stony look in her eyes as she turned towards the audience, “Ladies and gentlemen, we apologize for our inability to bring you the finale we promised. It would seem our… extraordinary young man would like to compromise his aspirations!”

 

She shot a look of betrayal, of anger and bitterness towards Tom who stared coldly back, but then she turned a delighted eye towards her audience, “But I… I know… There are many of you out there, extraordinary, no, exceptional people, who would gladly trade your ordinary lives for the opportunity to do one perfect act!”

 

She laughed, grinned and laughed, looked the audience square in the eye as she declared, “And you know what? We will always be there for you, any time you want us. Why, we are right inside your heads. And we promise you sets, costumes, lights, magic!”

 

None took her hand, there was not even a murmur in the audience, so instead, the Lead Player nodded, looking about the dismantled stage, “So, that’s it… That’s it, show’s over, everybody out.”  


She held out her hands, empty, as if in offering, “That’s it, everybody out. Shut off the lights, pack up the orchestra…”

 

The Lead Player watched as the rest of the cast left, all but Tom and Lily, center stage in the sole remaining white spotlight. The Lead Player made to leave, then turned, glaring at the orchestra pit, “Hands off the damn keyboard!”

 

The music abruptly stopped mid chord, the stage emptier for it, the magic of the show now dismantled and only Tom, Lily, the Lead Player, and the haunting shadow of stark and bitter reality remaining.

 

Still, even without the lights, the music, the illusions, and the miracles, Tom smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> This is a strange one, but someone asked for the musical numbers of the Death Eaters and that turned into a rendition of "Pippin" but "Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus" style. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, comments, kudos, and bookmarks are greatly appreciated.


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